GRP candidates for state offices caravanned across the eastern part of the Commonwealth on Saturday, April 17th, as the GRP bi-annual Regional Conventions kicked off with events in Medford, Brookline, and the Cape.

Attendees in three locations elected new delegates to the State Committee, heard from a variety of speakers on issues ranging from local zoning ordinances to global climate change, met with candidates running for local and legislative offices, sat in on workshops with campaign field organizers, and talked with the slate of state candidates--Jill Stein (Governor), Rick Purcell (Lt. Governor), and Nat Fortune (State Auditor).
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Boston City Councilor and longtime friend of the Green-Rainbow Party Chuck Turner set the tone

for these events in addressing both the Middlesex and Norfolk-Suffolk conventions. Identifying the Green-Rainbow Party as a "prophetic voice" in the tradition of Dwight Eisenhower, who railed against the "military-industrial complex," and Martin Luther King, Jr., who identified three central evils as "militarism, economic exploitation, and racism," Turner suggested that our goal should be to heal ourselves of the ills that continued to be wreaked by those pathogens. Turner also pointed that the GRP candidates for both Governor and Lt. Governor are, in very literal terms, healers (Dr. Jill Stein is a licensed physician, teacher of internal medicine, and pioneering environmental-health advocate; Rick Purcell, who served as a combat medic in Desert Storm, works a surgery clerk and ergonomics specialist).

Turner's message clearly resonated with attendees, who, in picking up campaign materials and signing on to the petition drive to get our candidates' names on the ballot in November, made it abundantly clear that they share the enthusiasm and conviction displayed by our candidates. The initial conventions reinforced the promise of a truly exciting, breakthrough year for the Green-Rainbow Party during a volatile election season. This is history in the making, and something you'll want to be a part of--see our Candidates' page for more details and links to web sites that will help you in getting involved!

The Green-Rainbow Party congratulates our newly-elected members to State Committee, and we extend our sincere thanks for your willingness to serve. We look forward to a lively and productive State Committee session when we meet in Northampton on April 24th. Note that the Worcester Regional Convention is slated for Saturday, April 17th; look for imminent announcements regarding the Berkshire and Pioneer Valley regionals.

Norfolk-Suffolk Regional

In Brookline, the candidates mixed deep analyses of our fundamental crises with personal accounts of their own experiences. Brookline Town Meeting candidate Arthur Conquest related the way in which his own children's experiences as members of a minority in a local school system first moved him into the political arena. Peter Ames, also running for Town Meeting, described his own history with local government. And Rick Purcell spoke movingly from firsthand experience about the horrors of war, and the need to end them--now.

When it came to matters of policy, Nat Fortune, running for State Auditor, made the case that the Auditor's role isn't simply to keep track of how our tax dollars spent, but to see that they are spent wisely. Every dollar we collect--or don't collect, when we extend demonstrably foolish tax breaks to companies that don't fulfill their end of the bargain--reflects our priorities and represents, in one way or another, an investment. Fortune's campaign is founded on the premise that investing in people represents a better alternative to investing in privatized profit-taking schemes.

Jill Stein's talk on the healthcare crisis provided an apt illustration of a central tenet of Green politics: our ecological vision that eschews treating specific issues in a vacuum in favor of a holistic approach. In identifying the obstacles to creating a truly healthy society, Stein connected a constellation of dots. How we produce what we eat is related to current disease clusters... and to environmental degradation... and to a cynical political system that allows corporate money to perpetuate the conventional ways of thinking that worsen these crises. But, Stein concluded, the electorate couldn't be more ripe for the Green message, and the Green-Rainbow Party is well-poised to deliver system-wide solutions to systemic problems. The solution? Focusing on creating truly green jobs (e.g., sustainable agriculture and weatherization) that simultaneously address our energy, health, economic, and environmental-related crises--while providing the long-term jobs we desperately need.

Regional representatives elected to the GRP State Committee:

Suffolk:
Ralph Walton
Mike Heichman

Norfolk:
Peter Ames
Michael Horan
Dave England (alternate)

Arthur Conquest was nominated for another term as Diversity Representative, and Merelice will continue to serve out her four-year term a representative from Norfolk.

Plymouth-Barnstable-Bristol Region-Islands Regional

The Cape Cod Times published an account of the convention that took place in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth, which read, in part:

Members of the Cape's Green-Rainbow Party are hoping to cash in on voter dissatisfaction this fall by presenting candidates who present an alternative to the status quo....They also rallied around Peter White, the independent candidate for the 10th Congressional District, and Jill Stein, the Green-Rainbow candidate for governor.
...Stein, who lost to former Gov. Mitt Romney in 2002 and fell to William Galvin in the 2006 race for secretary of state, spoke about everything from casinos to campaign finance reform and told supporters the time is right for a third party to succeed in Massachusetts.
...She said the recent surprise election of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown highlights frustration among voters, adding the only way to fix a broken politic system is to offer a viable alternative to the status quo.
"The bottom line is there's a crisis out there, but there are real solutions down here at the grassroots level," Stein said. "People are fightin' angry and looking for something other than two-party flim-flam."
White, the independent candidate running to succeed U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who has decided not to seek re-election, agreed with Stein and said his mission in life is to promote peace and stop war...."We have to turn the silent majority into the active majority," White said. "We know the problems, we know the solutions, but the thing that is missing is the political will."

Regional representatives elected to the GRP State Committee:

Mike Risch
Jim Demetrius

Middlesex-Essex Regional

Regional representatives elected to the GRP State Committee:

John Andrews
Eli Beckerman
Mary Glickman
David Rolde
Jill Stein
Lloyd Smith (alternate)
Elie Yarden (alternate)